Americas

This was the headline in the US Wall Street Journal in its weekend
edition on 1-3 September.

On Friday 6th October the Spanish daily, El País carried an article by
Ignacio Sotelo under the headline, ‘Mexico - a pre-revolutionary
situation’. These articles reveal the true extent of the battles and
struggles now unfolding in Mexico following the massive ballot rigging
which resulted in the conservative right winger, Felipe Calderón of the
PAN (Partido Acción Naciónal) being declared the winner of the
presidential election in July. Ever since, Mexico City centre has been
blocked by an encampment of thousands of supporters of radical populist
López Obrador (ALMO) the presidential candidate of the PRD (Partido
Revoluccionario Democratico).

While it is premature to describe Mexico, on a national scale, as in a
classic pre-revolutionary situation as understood by Marxists, elements
of this are now beginning to develop and a massive social upheaval is
unfolding.

The last mass turn out was to a popular assembly attended by an
estimated one and half million on September 16, National Independence
Day. This mass assembly elected Obrador as "President" of a parallel
government which is committed to a mass campaign of "civil protest"
aimed at preventing Calderón from being sworn in as President on
December 1st and fighting attempts by his government to implement its
neo-liberal agenda.

This campaign has been accompanied by the massive battles of the working
class, peasants and others throughout the year. These historic events
open a new chapter in the struggles of the Mexican masses. With Mexico’s
powerful revolutionary traditions stemming from the revolutionary period
1910-20, the ruling class of Mexico, and the Bush junta, are terrified
of what now lies ahead. As the only "neo-colonial" country with land
borders to a major imperialist power, these upheavals are set to have
massive repercussions not only in Mexico and Latin America but also in
the USA with its strong Hispanic/Mexican population. Since the
revolution in 1910-20 Mexico has been transformed and now has a
powerful, educated working class. Mexico’s population has exploded from
15 million in 1910 to over 100 million today. In 1910 only 29% lived in
the cities today this has grown to 75%. With 55% of the work force
employed in the service sector. Yet the history of the Mexican
revolution is deeply engrained into the consciousness of the masses.

As the Wall Street Journal put it: "The bitter post-electoral fight has
revealed a side of Mexico that many assumed was the stuff of history
books" (WSJ 1/9/06). The same article compared the current situation
with the period which opened in 1913 following the assassination of
President Francisco Madero "the period Mexicans now call their
‘revolution’ " (WSJ). The prominent Mexican historian and opponent of
Obrador, Enrique Krauze warns: "There should be no doubt that Mr. López
Obrador represents a revolutionary threat. This is no joke. I hope that
he will not succeed and democracy will prevail. But nevertheless, it’s
important that people realise what is at stake." (WSJ 1/9/06).

However, rather than López Obrador posing a revolutionary threat, the
real threat comes from the mass forces of workers, peasants, students
and others exploited by capitalism who are supporting him. For, while
denouncing corruption, poverty and inefficiency, his radical programme
is limited to working within capitalism with the objective of "cleaning
it up" and constructing a more ‘humane’ form of capitalism.

What the ruling class rightly fears from Obrador coming to power is that
such a victory would open the flood gates to a mass movement of strikes
and occupations demanding any government led by him should go much
further than he himself intended. And such fear is justified. Mexico is
now a powder keg in the process of exploding socially. It is clear that
the new government of Calderón, if he is able to sit in the Presidential
chair, will have no credibility or authority. Massive struggles are
imminent and many are already taking place.

Even prior to the presidential election, thousands of miners in Lázaro
Cárdenas, Michoacán, were involved in a bitter strike which involved
clashes with the police in which two miners were killed.

Steel workers were involved in a strike lasting for 141 days which shut
down the port, involved pitch battles with the police and the burning
down of the local company offices. The steel workers not only won every
one of their demands but they forced the company to pay them for every
day they were on strike.

Mexico has a powerful and strongly unionised working class with 10
million organised into unions. Most are in the official unions linked to
the former regime of the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Instituciónal) that
ruled Mexico for more than 70 years under an increasingly repressive,
corrupt system which included a strong corporate state sector in the
economy.

Coming to power in 2000, the neo-liberal PAN is acting for capitalism
and imperialism, is now eager to get its hands on the state-owned
sectors of the economy in oil, electricity, water and other services,
and sell them off. Even the corrupt official union leaders are being
forced to act by the pressure of their members and to defend their own
interests.

400,000 state social-security workers are threatening strike action from
mid-November. The leader of this union is a supporter of Obrador. Now
the leadership of Mexico City’s electricity workers is also threatening
strike action to keep out private investment and is backing Obrador. At
a mass rally, Fernado Amezcua, a top union leader, declared: "We will
not allow the plundering of our national resources." Under the old
regime of the PRI, the union leadership collaborated in keeping the
workers’ movement in check in exchange for concessions from the powerful
state sector. Now, with this under threat, major struggles of the
working class are in the process of erupting.

Powerful concessions (for the neo-colonial world) have been won by the
Mexican working class which the ruling class wants to attack. The
imperialist investors want to reform the Labour Code, introduced in the
1930s (under the radical populist regime of Cardenas - who nationalised
the oil industry and gave political asylum to Leon Trotsky). This
ensured that in industries the highest pay level negotiated between a
union and a company automatically became the established rate throughout
the industry - even in companies with no union. Even Calderón dares not
propose yet to attack this section of the labour code for fear of
provoking an even bigger explosion.

Yet all commentators fear that what the future battles in Mexico will
involve is already being seen in the state of Oaxaca where a popular
insurrection is now under way. Beginning as a militant strike of the
teachers over wages, it has now developed into a mass uprising demanding
the resignation of the state governor Ulises Ruis, a member of the PRI.

70,000 teachers have been on strike in the state since early May
preventing 1.3 million students from attending classes. For most of that
time the state has been compelled to pay them full wages. These teachers
have a very strong militant tradition. Every year since the 1980s they
have gone on strike demanding a higher wage rise than the increase
accepted by the national union leadership. After a march on Mexico City
they have usually won a few hundred dollars more. This year when
negotiations broke down they simply demanded US$100 million dollars more
and began a strike. Enrique Rueda, head of the Oaxaca teachers union
summed up the attitude of the teachers: "We have learned to fight for
everything we get, because otherwise no one pays us any attention."

For three months the state capital has been under siege. Tourists no
longer visit this colonial town. The state governor is in hiding and the
state congress can only meet secretly in a hotel. The Popular Assembly
of Oaxaca (APPO), formed to support the teachers, is a co-ordinating
body of hundreds of social, trade union, indigenous and political
organisations, has virtually taken over the running of the town
including some policing. The police have disappeared and only reappear
in secret to randomly shoot down activists. Youth groups with bandanas
covering their faces roam the city and groups of teachers are on street
corners, many armed with machetes stopping those they deem suspicious.

The APPO has introduced a 10pm curfew and banned the taking of
photographs because of secret police surveillance. Eight private radio
stations have been taken over by the insurgents to broadcast their
demands, calls to action and to help co-ordinate the movement. With the
state governor afraid to appear in public and the state judges hiding
away in their houses, there is a stand off in the city. Here elements of
dual power and a pre-revolutionary situation exist. That is to say, the
old capitalist state machine is not fully in control and part of its
functions have been taken over by the working class and their supporters
but neither are the workers fully in control and the old state machine
still exists although it is weakened.

Such a situation cannot continue indefinitely - and in particular not if
isolated to only one state. The movement can become worn down or even
crushed. The government has held back at present from trying to brutally
repress the movement for fear of provoking an even greater crisis. Yet
such measures could be attempted at a certain stage in order to try and
intimidate the masses nationally against emulating this uprising. While
the main demands of the movement have centred on the resignation of the
state govenor it is urgent that the movement in Oaxaca is spread and
takes all possible steps to win the support of the masses nationally
including a national protests and strikes in solidarity with the Oaxaca
peoples. Significantly, Obrador has kept his distance form this movement
and urged that the national struggle limits itself to ‘peaceful civil
protest’. Yet this uprising in Oaxaca is a foretaste of the movement to
come in Mexico in the next months and years.

As this struggle in Mexico is unfolding the need for the working class
to develop its own independent organisations, party and programme to
overthrow capitalism is growing ever more urgent. One urgent task is to
fight to democratise the trade unions which are still run along
corporate lines by a powerful undemocratic bureaucracy. Free democratic
elections of the trade union leadership and for democratic control of
the unions by the rank and file are an urgent and crucial step.

At the same time, a campaign to build for a 24 - hour national general
strike as a first step to stop Calderón from being sworn in needs to be
launched. A campaign of civil disobedience as proposed by Obrador is not
sufficient to defeat the corrupt gangsters who have stolen the election
from the Mexican people.

Democratically elected committees of struggle need to be established in
all work places, universities, workers’ districts and by the poor
peasants and others opposed to the existing system. Such committees,
whose delegates need to be elected, subject to the right of recall and
fully accountable to mass meetings, need to be linked up on a city-wide,
district, state-wide and national basis. Such bodies can become a real
democratic expression and organisation of the movement and the basis to
take the struggles forward in a co-ordinated way.

From this movement there is also an urgent necessity for the working
class to establish its own party that will fight for its interests and
develop a revolutionary socialist programme. Obrador has declared that
Mexico "needs a revolution". However, he sees that ‘revolution’ taking
place within capitalism. What is needed is a revolution that will break
from the strait-jacket of capitalism and landlordism in Mexico. If this
is not done it will not be possible to fulfill the aspirations of the
masses who have rallied to Obrador’s campaign.

The struggles to prevent Calderón from being sworn in as President and
against his government if it is formed need to be part of the fight for
a workers’ and peasants’ government with a revolutionary socialist
programme. By linking up with the movements in Venezuela and Bolivia,
and the completing of the socialist revolution in those countries and
introducing a genuine workers’ democracy in Cuba, it would be possible
to establish a democratic socialist federation of those countries with
Mexico. Capitalism and landlordism throughout Latin America could begin
to be challenged and the door opened to win the support of the working
class and poor in the USA. This is the challenge that now exists for
socialists and workers in Mexico as the struggle becomes sharper in the
coming months and years.